Video FX
Video FX are five effects an input can have, each with its own switch: Black & white, Noise reduction, Blur, Sharpen and Vignette. Open the input’s settings and go to its Video FX tab, then switch on the ones you want. Each effect’s settings appear under it while it is on, and the picture changes as you move them.
The effects belong to the input, so they go everywhere it does: Program, Preview, its card, the multiview, a Composite and an overlay. They apply after the chroma key and the Colour tab, so a vignette darkens the corners of the picture as you have corrected it, and a blur does not soften the key’s edge.
The five
- Black & white takes the colour out. It is the same picture as the Colour tab’s Saturation at zero, but on a switch of its own, so a key can turn it on and off during a show.
- Noise reduction smooths the fine grain of a camera in low light. Amount sets how strongly; it softens fine detail as it goes, so use as little as clears the grain.
- Blur softens the whole picture. Radius sets how much: useful behind a title, or to blur a camera you should not show sharply.
- Sharpen crisps edges. Amount is how strongly, Radius how wide an edge it works on. A little goes a long way: too much gives bright halos round edges.
- Vignette darkens the edges towards the corners. Strength is how dark, Size how far in the clear middle reaches.
Sizes are a share of the input’s own picture, so an effect looks the same on a 720p camera as on a 4K one. Each slider has its own reset arrow, back to its starting value.
Switching an effect off keeps its settings, so switching it on again brings it back as it was. Effects switch on and off at once, as a cut.
From a key, a rule or a remote
Each effect can be switched on, off, or on or off from:
- a hotkey, and so from the web remote;
- a Stream Deck key, with the plug-in’s Video FX action;
- an automation rule, for example black & white off when a camera reaches Program;
- Bitfocus Companion, with ready-made buttons for each effect and input;
- the control API.
Choose the input, or Program for its own, and the effect. A Stream Deck or Companion key, and a web remote button, is lit while the effect is on.
What they cost
Black & white and the vignette cost next to nothing. Noise reduction, blur and sharpen work on each pixel’s neighbours, at the input’s full size, and use more of the Mac’s graphics: on an M4 Pro all five together take about a millisecond for each 1080p frame. InterDirector does that work once for each frame of the input, however many places show it, so a camera on Program, in Preview and in the multiview costs little more than in one place. On an older Mac with several cameras using them, keep an eye on the graphics load.
Recording an input records its clean picture, before the effects, so you can choose again when you edit.
On Program
Program has Video FX of its own, and the same colour controls an input has: press the gear beside Fade to Black under the Program monitor. They apply to the switched picture — whichever input is on Program, or the mix while a transition runs — under the overlays, so lower thirds and logos keep their colours, and before Fade to Black. Every output gets them: the stream, recordings, NDI and the external display. Preview shows the input without them.
The gear is coloured while Program has colour or effects of its own. In a hotkey, a rule, a Stream Deck key or Companion, choose Program as the source of a Video FX action to switch Program’s.
Next
Colour correction and grading, for the input’s colour, and Composite inputs, to put an input with its effects beside or over others.